WINE & DINE WITH ANGELA LANSBURY

 

 

 Goat cheese to go with pink Saucerre .  The perfect match says Thierry. Goat cheese and Sancerre. Cute little pencils with rubbers (erasers, USA).

 Rsp 19 pounds a bottle. 100% Riesling Drinkable. 5/7 on my scale as at CLWS.

  Okanagan Valley wss named after or by Native people in the region. 100% Reisling. Not the petrol aroma I expected. So some would say not as good, but others would say better. At the recommended price of 70 pounds beyond my and many people's retail buying budget.. 

  Relaunching on the UK. A Canadian company.  It is Cider. 10% alcohol. Soon to be in Canadian airports. Try it with Shropshire blue cheese from Waitrose. A Xmas gift.. Useful Website Neige.co

  Prosecco from north east Italy. Elena of Bianca Vigna. Vigna means winery. Bianca is her eldest daughter. As you have guessed, a family business. Elena's brother is  an oenologist. You can buy the wines from Waddesdon's website  . Also Ocado could be 18 to 20 pounds depending on seasonal special offers.  

  How Spanish food has improved, like English food, over the past few decades. On Tenerife, the largest of the Canary islands, we were looking for a special place to celebrate my husband's birthday.  He found a Michelin standard restaurant. A place where the ingredients, tastes, and presentation would be a surprise, something we could not or would not do at home. (That is a challenge, because my husband is a keen cook. He downloads recipes in French and translates them. He consults three version of the same dish. He shops for unusual ingredients, ordering Jersey potatoes online to get the right texture and flavour.) The name of the restaurant is El Taller. This is Spanish for workshop, studio, repair shop, or garage, depending on the context, the surroundings.   Wine muscat. 9 couses 1 chocolate ball with sweet tomato soup centre   The open hatch into the kitchen at the back enables you to watch the chef owner, Seve Diaz, preparing the set meals. You can see the...

  The Interpretation Centres leaflet alerted me to the view and an eating place which was probably open, being part of a museum complex. Several restaurants had been closed on Sundays and Mondays. Others seemed to be closed in June. Waiting to open until high season., school holidays July and August and busy warm winter season September until January.  Our leaflet described the eating place as a cafeteria. But we had good, swift, waiter service from a friendly man who recommended a sweet verdecha grape wine which suited me. The dry wine for my husband was a blend including Malvasia grapes. The bread came with mango flavour butter. I had cod in a delicious slightly sweet red. Maybe tomato sauce. My husband,s salad looked like a flower. In the centre was a dome of white soft cheese covered in a skin of green sauce. The lettuce leaves, crisp, oval and green were arranged around the centre like petals. The spotless toilets for ladies had 3 cubicles all with wash basins plus anothe...

  The letters T and G are on labels on new wines from this huge important co-op, selling wines from 300 producers.  Sweet malvasia Photo by Angela Lansbury.

 In London I used to love drinking mango lassi in Indian restaurants. You could order it sweet, or savoury, salted. A four and a half hour flight from Stansted airport, north of London, took me and my husband to Tenerife. I first had mango soup in the parador Teide on Tenerife, one of the Spanish, Spanish-speaking Canary Islands. The second time was at a restaurant Casa Osmunda, the name of the original owner of the house, on the island of La Palma. We arrived after a two and a half hour ferry trip from Trnerife . , town hillside, Santa Cruz de la Palma, has the pory for ferIed and tbe airport.

 I remember when I first went to trade shows offering food and wine I would ask where their products could be bought in Britain, or Europe. Often the prospective seller would say distributor wanted. Or the catalogue might say that under their name. Some even had a sign on their table, distributor wanted. I wondered whether this was just the seller hoping that distributor walking by would try their wines or food. If the taster liked it, would they then decide to talk about it and seal a deal? Would there be conflicts of interest? We already have a Champagne. Or would it be the contrary. We stock Champagnes. Or we don't stock Champagnes. I always assumed that the first factor was finding a distributor. The second was convincing the prospect that you were offering a saleable product.  The forums and discussion sessions are often dealing with where is the market going. Are there more people in this country or that buying alcohol. low alcohol, no alcohol. healthy foods, small quant...

  The London Wine Show had little food. I was not keen on the prices of the kiosks either side.  On my way home on Monday I stopped at Tesco in Harrow and bought a meal deal, a chicken sandwich, one was enough for supper and I kept the other for lunch next day.  At checkout the assistant told me that it was part of a meal deal and it came with snack. I chose a chocolate bar.  White Chocolate Meal Drink The third part of the meal deal was a drink. I selected white chocolate protein drink. I love white chocolate.  Useful Websites https://www.tesco.com/

 I went to try Georgian food and wine at the London Wine Fair which was a trade show held at Olympia, May 18 to 20th, 2026. Georgian food was new to me. I love novelties.  Georgian Food I tried three types of food. I rated them 5 star food, top, three star food, okay, one star, not yet - try again. Honey Cake - Top Rated Top food was honey cake. Brown, small, looked like bands of darker and slightly lighter colour. Melt in the mouth honey flavour. Definitely one to look for. One to make yourself. Then compare your version with theirs. The Georgian Stand Their stand was visibly headed Georgia, home of wine, birthplace of wine. I expect they will be at the World Travel Market travel trade show held in London in the autumn off-season every year, November 3-5 in 2026 at Excel. Similar events are held in other countries. NOTING ANNUAL EVENTS IN  NEXT YEAR'S DIARY The next London Wine Fair is in 2027. November 3-5 at Excel. Mark the date on the back of your diary, or the last d...

Spanish English A almendras - almonds  arroz - rice arroz con leche - rice pudding azucar - sugar B botella - bottle C carne - meat (like carnivore) carrito de postres - dessert trolley carro de queso - cheese board carta - menu cebolla - onion cerveza - beer chocolate - chocolate confitura - jam  D de - of desayuno - breakfast dolares - dollars ¿Dónde están los baños? - Where are the toilets? G gracias - thanks E electricidad - electricity F una factura - a bill ; una factura detallada - an itemized bill  fruta - fruit fuego - fire J un jarra - a carafe (jar) L la leche - milk M mesa - table N naranja - orange P umn pastel - cake perscado - fish pina - pineapple plato - plate platillo - saucer policia - police pollo - chicken (like poulet in French) pimiento - pepper Q queso - cheese R un recibo - a receipt  una reserva - a reservation restaurante - restaurant S sal - salt salsa - sauce sardinas - sardines servicio - service servicios - restrooms/toilets sopa - soup...

  Enticing window displays. Huge flowers and animals to entertain children. Look closely and you will see a gold topped Champagne bottle in the lower middle.  Upstairs in Fortnum & Mason food store in Jermyn Street, London. I had a freshly squeezed orange juice. Hard to find in London. But everywhere in Singapore. Teeny ice cream cone came with the double espresso.  A informative placemat for adults, with a reverse for kids to colour. If you are looking for table mats, napkins, place settings, for holding a dinner party you will find numerous delights. We bought a tea towel showing the building, the main colour being their signature turquoise green.  Useful Website on Fortnum's fortnumandmason.com Please share links to your favourite posts.

The Travel with Angela Lansbury blog pre-dates my Wine and dine blog. I started the Wine and dine blog to group together my restaurant and food and wine reviews, without the distraction of posts on trains, statues, museums, and learning languages. The wine and dine blog is shorter and more focused.  Duplicate Posts Are any of the posts duplicates? Yes. I sometimes start a post on the travel blog and then think, this is a candidate for the wine and dine blog. I do , however, often change the posts as I continue editing them. On the travel blog I will add details about travel. I might add more about food on the wine and dine blog. A post on learning Spanish on the travel blog will include words about trains and planes. On the wine and dine blog I will remove some of the travel words and add more menu words. When I started the wine and dine blog I duplicated a few restaurant posts here. I was surprised and disappointed that my food and drink posts got far fewer readers on the wine and...

 Hatch End was called the restaurant capital of north west London by a local newspaper.  Hatch End has no shortage of Italian style coffee bars and Italian and Indian restaurants.  Caffe Pascucci Scheduled to open early May, 8-10, they told me, is the Italian Caf fè , by the same people as the caff è Pascucci   a few doors along towards the Hatch End station. The new branch in on the corner, where the old post office was for years. I have lived in Hatch End many years and often pass the caffe and find the name hard to remember. I finally got around to looking up the origin of the name. It comes from the Italian word for Easter, so it was a name given to children born around Easter time. Or the offspring of a parent who was given that name. If your first language is English, how do you remember it?  The Italian sounds similar to the French for Easter, Paques. Also the Hebrew Pesach. There you have it, the meaning, and the way to remember the name of the coff...

  After the Real Italian Wine & Food  Experience at Excel, I have been looking back at their website and catalogue and what I discovered and enjoyed at this new style trade show.  Why Sunday and Monday? Firstly, the date of the show was a Sunday and a Monday. The day of the week chosen was not an accident, nor simply due to the availability or price of the exhibition hall. The organizers, wineexperience.com, chose a Sunday and Monday because that is when many restaurants and food and wine businesses are closed or have fewer customers, consumers, and can afford the time to go to an exhibition for business to business meetings. They even had a children's area. So families could come along. But children were kept out of the way, whilst adults were tasting wine.  Looking Back At What I Learned and Missed I missed out on the blind tasting area. I like an attractive bottle and label. If I had more time, next time I would do the taste test without the distraction of the...

  Lady oenologist, in charge of production in France. She came to  London for a day of three tastings. All at  In the basement. Very elegant. Rose wine is the popular choice for Inian weddings. For weddings you might choose two Chsmpagnes, one white and one rose. 100% pinot noir, black grape.